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Debbie Reynolds

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File:Debbie Reynolds in 1954.jpg
Debbie Reynolds in 1954

Debbie Reynolds (born April 1, 1932) is an American actress and singer.

Singer and actor

She was born Mary Frances Reynolds in El Paso, Texas, the second child of Raymond Francis Reynolds (1903-1986) and Maxine N. Harman (1913-1999).

Her family moved to Burbank, California, in 1939. In 1948 she won the Miss Burbank Beauty Contest which resulted in a motion picture contract with Warner Bros. They gave her a new first name and cast her for small roles in two movies.

Reynolds then signed with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and was cast in Three Little Words which starred Fred Astaire and Red Skelton. Her appearance in her second movie at MGM, Two Weeks With Love, received strong notices. She then appeared in Mr. Imperium opposite Lana Turner.

She was chosen for the female lead in Singin' in the Rain despite the fact that Gene Kelly, who had starred in the musical comedy, was initially opposed. Reynolds was inexperienced and did not know how to tap dance. She worked hard and turned in a well-received performance with Kelly and Donald O'Connor.

Reynolds went on to star in numerous motion pictures, record hit songs (most notably "Tammy" from her 1957 film Tammy and the Bachelor) and headline major Las Vegas showrooms. Her starring role in The Unsinkable Molly Brown (1964) led to a Oscar nomination, but she lost to Julie Andrews in Mary Poppins. In 2004 she was still making appearances in film and television, one of the few actors from MGM's "golden age of film" (including Anita Page, Mickey Rooney, Lauren Bacall, Cyd Charisse, Margaret O'Brien, Jane Powell, Rita Moreno, Leslie Caron, Dean Stockwell, Van Johnson, Angela Lansbury, Russ Tamblyn and June Lockhart) who was still active in filmmaking. From 1999 to the present, she has played the recurring role of Grace's mother Bobbi Adler on the NBC sitcom Will & Grace.

Reynolds has been active in the Thalians Club and has also displayed her collection of movie memorabilia, first in a Las Vegas resort during the 1990s and later in a museum close to the Kodak Theater in Los Angeles, California. She has auctioned off some of these items several times.

Marriages and children

Reynolds has been married three times:

She has two children, Carrie Fisher (of Star Wars fame) and Todd Fisher (born 1958).

In what was, for those times, an enormous scandal, Debbie's husband, singer Eddie Fisher left her to marry the recently-widowed Elizabeth Taylor. In an ironic twist, Elizabeth and Debbie were close friends and grew up together as child actresses at MGM. Debbie publicly played the role of scorned wife to the hilt; Elizabeth played the role of femme fatale. Each intensely ambitious actress received enormous publicity as a result. To complete the whole complicated affair, Taylor soon dropped Fisher as Fisher had dropped Reynolds, when Taylor met and married Richard Burton.

Debbie's next marriage, to shoe magnate Harry Karl, proved disastrous. Instead of providing stabilty and financial security for Debbie and her children, Debbie learned too late that Karl was a pathological gambler and had been throwing away her money on his long losing streak.

Awards

Reynolds was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress following her performance in The Unsinkable Molly Brown (1964), a Golden Globe for The Debbie Reynolds Show on television (1970), a Golden Globe for the motion picture Mother (1997), and a Blockbuster Entertainment Award for In & Out (1997). In 1997 she received the Lifetime Achievement Award in Comedy.

In what Debbie herself called the worst blunder of her career, she made big headlines in 1970 when she instigated a fight with NBC for advertising cigarettes on her TV show, which she had expressly told the network not to. Although her ratings weren't bad, her show was canceled.


Her foot and hand prints are preserved in the forecourt of Grauman's Chinese Theater in Hollywood and she has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6654 Hollywood Boulevard.

Trivia

For many years her personal manager was Seymour Heller, who also managed Liberace.

Reynolds was a Girl Scout when she was younger, and continued her involvement with that organization as a troop leader. A scholarship in her name was offered to high-school age Girl Scouts.

Filmography

TV appearances

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